


The Things Dick Grayson Gained

by hikuni



Series: Losses and Gains [2]
Category: Batman Beyond, Batman Beyond 2.0 (Comics), DC Animated Universe (Timmverse)
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Comic: Batman Beyond 2.0, Justice Lords Universe, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, Slow Burn, Suit Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 15:21:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21304259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikuni/pseuds/hikuni
Summary: When Dick had moved into this loft, he bought a double bed. It didn’t make sense to buy anything bigger when it was just him. But after he’d dismissed the delivery men and hauled it into his room, set it up, got the mattress in place, it had been overwhelmingly depressing to see how little space the double bed took up. It made the room feel like a prison: bare walls and bare floors and just a solitary, lonely bed in the middle of it. Dick returned it and bought a king, just so there’d at least be stuff to take up space in his loft, to give the appearance there was an actual life that lived here. The king had been expensive, unnecessarily so, and honestly he’d been a little bitter about that for years. But now, as he looked at the lump of blankets lying next to him, all he felt was gratitude. Although the king had been criminally big for one, it was perfect for two.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Terry McGinnis, Mentions of Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon
Series: Losses and Gains [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535894
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	The Things Dick Grayson Gained

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to everyone whose left a kudos or comment on the original. I would not have written this sequel had it not been for the last few commenters. Your comments honestly have brought me so much joy and encouragement, and it feels wonderful to revisit this pairing that had too short a canon shelf life. Anyway, I thought I didn't have any more to say about Dick Grayson and Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond 2.0, but 18,000+ words later and I guess I did! Set immediately after the Justice Lords Beyond arc, with some canon divergence to re-imagine those events as if Dick and Terry have a semi-established relationship (I don't know, they don't know what they're doing).
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Dick Grayson was dreaming.

Or at least, he was left with the vague impression he’d been dreaming. Now, even though his eyes were open, the rest of him hadn’t quite caught on to the fact that he was awake. From somewhere nearby, the last few notes of a phone alarm swam murkily through his consciousness before silence overtook the room again.

A warm, pink morning was dawning somewhere down the street, but that early sunlight never managed to sneak its way past the neighboring business towers and into Dick’s bedroom. Even when the morning was bright outside, his loft remained shady and cold, even in the peak of summer. Maybe that’s why the real estate agent had been all teeth when he’d signed the lease. Finally, a sucker dumb enough to take an aging loft in this rapidly declining mid-rise neighborhood.

Dick sat up slowly, in no real rush to wake up in earnest. He’d been dreaming, he was sure of it, but he could barely remember any details. He rubbed the drowsiness in his good eye with the back of his thumb. It had been a _pleasant_ dream, that much he could remember. But what was it? What was -

Warm breath on his throat.

A voice moaning his name.

Fingers wound taut in Dick’s hair.

Dick stopped his rubbing.

_Ah. That’s right. _

That’s what kind of dream it was.

It hadn’t been a dream so much as an embellished memory of a night some weeks ago when Dick realized Terry McGinnis was hungry and that hunger was aimed at Dick.

_Terry._

Dick’s head snapped to the left, his vision landing on the other half of his bed.

When Dick had moved into this loft, he bought a double bed.

It didn’t make sense to buy anything bigger when it was just him. But after he’d dismissed the delivery men and hauled it into his room, set it up, got the mattress in place, it had been overwhelmingly depressing to see how little _space_ the double bed took up. It made the room feel like a prison: bare walls and bare floors and just a solitary, lonely bed in the middle of it. Dick returned it and bought a king, just so there’d at least be _stuff_ to take up space in his loft, to give the appearance there was an actual life that lived here. The king had been expensive, unnecessarily so, and honestly he’d been a little bitter about that for years. But now, as he looked at the lump of blankets lying next to him, all he felt was gratitude. Although the king had been criminally big for one, it was perfect for two.

A shock of black hair stuck out from beneath the pile of blankets next to him. Terry McGinnis had a tendency to cocoon himself up when he slept, and quietly, Dick had bought a second duvet and added it to his bed so the oversleeping college kid could wrap himself up to his heart’s content (and, to a lesser extent, so Dick would stop waking up freezing at night).

Dick felt a smile warm its way across his cheeks. He reached out a hand and, hesitating for just a moment, gingerly laid it on the black-haired head sleeping on the pillow next to his.

The lump of blankets that was supposedly Terry McGinnis didn’t even stir.

This thing between them was still so new. They’d had no time to give it a name or define it and he was barely convinced a _This_ even existed, but maybe this shock of black hair was the proof that it did. Dick curled his fingers gently in the dark, silky strands. He was almost afraid of whatever this was. This happiness felt fragile, like a butterfly landed on his palm. Dick was afraid to hold on to it too tightly and crush it.

The phone alarm that had roused Dick from slumber, offended at having been ignored or snoozed away, began blaring again. This time Dick was awake enough that the shrill of it startled him. It took him a moment to locate the source – Terry’s phone was lying upside down on the bedside table next to Dick’s old analog alarm clock.

_Oversleeping college kid._

The words repeated themselves faintly in Dick’s mind and suddenly he was wide awake. His eyes darted to the clock. 7:41, it announced with unsympathetic clarity. Suddenly the now-yellow sunlight glinting on the building across the street was less a pleasant start to the day and more a threat that the day had been going on too long without him.

“Terry,” Dick rasped, his voice hoarse from sleep. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Terry, time to get up.”

He shook the bedding lump gently, but all it did was grunt, muffled beneath the blankets and the wail of the alarm.

Dick let out a soft laugh. Fine. He reached over the mountain of blankets to grab Terry’s phone. His shifting weight was enough of a disturbance to earn him a second grunt from beneath the blanket mountain. Dick ignored Terry’s protests and turned the alarm off before setting the phone back down on the table.

“I think that was your second alarm. You’re gonna be late,” Dick said gently.

“…’reggss,” the blanket mound groaned.

Dick smiled. It felt like Dick was always smiling these days. “Good morning.”

An arm popped out from the mound of blankets, but instead of pulling the covers down, the arm pulled the blankets up, further and further up until even the tuft of messy hair completely disappeared beneath them.

Dick chuckled and swung his legs around to the side of the bed. “I’ll make coffee, but if you’re not up by the time I get back…”

He let his sentence trail off. He didn’t really have a threat to follow up with. Honestly, if it were up to Dick, he’d let the younger man sleep in his bed all morning. All day, even. Would that he could keep Terry McGinnis in his home forever.

_Careful_, his thoughts warned.

The arm popped out from the blanket mound again, grabbing blindly at sheets and air until the hand found the fabric of Dick’s shirt. The hand bunched the hem of Dick’s shirt into a fist and tugged. Bemusedly, Dick let himself be pulled back to the center of the bed. _There’s not time for this_, the responsible side of him chided.

“Good morning,” Dick murmured again as he pulled back the covers of Terry’s blanket fortress.

Terry was lying on his stomach, facing away from Dick, but he had one arm out behind him, bent awkwardly, still tugging at Dick to come closer. As he did, Terry began to turn over to face him, and now there were _two_ hands pawing at Dick, finding their way up to either side of Dick’s face. As those hands closed on Dick’s jaw and guided him down, Dick let his eyelids fall heavy. He leaned into it, obeying the demanding fingers and was rewarded with soft lips against his.

The hands on Dick’s face slid away, one backwards, one down, until one had him by the nape of his neck and the other by the collar of his shirt. _No good_, Dick thought briefly, only it _was_ good. It was _very_ good. Terry’s kiss had been light at first, a friendly good morning. It didn’t take long for that kiss to turn heavier, a tongue breaching Dick’s lips, a kiss that now said something very, very different.

_Breakfast in bed,_ Dick’s thoughts offered unhelpfully.

Dick opened his eyes only to see absolutely nothing, because his shirt was now being tugged over his head. Dick pulled his weight back just enough to help. The collar of his shirt caught on his chin, and he heard a bemused laugh from somewhere below him. Dick unstuck his shirt and pulled it off completely before tossing it away to lay where it would.

His now-bare skin goosepimpled in the cool morning air. A shiver shook through him as he brought his gaze down to find, finally, Terry’s face smiling back at him.

“Hey,” Terry said, one hand held out to Dick like an invitation, beckoning him to come closer.

_So beautiful._

It’d been a month – maybe month and a half? – since Terry panted on Dick’s sofa and begged Dick to fuck him. And between then and there, their relationship had quietly but irrevocably changed.

At a glance, things between them were mostly the same. Dick still ran the monitors when Terry was in the suit. Terry still came and went at the loft as he pleased – although ever since Kal sent Terry to the Lords timeline, it felt like Terry was going a _lot_ more than he was coming. But by most appearances, their routines remained unchanged. A groggy Terry McGinnis would depart Dick’s loft for class in the morning. Dick wouldn’t see him again until an exhausted and aching and all-too-often bleeding Batman came back to him at night.

But if you looked closely, all the little details that had changed. Dick began kissing Terry goodbye when the younger man left for morning class. The first time it happened, he hadn’t put too much thought into it until he pulled away and saw the look on Terry’s face, stunned and motionless where Dick had caught him in the kitchen. Dick’s immediate reaction was to apologize, but before he could get the words out, Terry had cupped Dick’s jaw in both hands and was kissing him a second time.

At some point during the last month (and a half?), a second toothbrush had appeared in Dick’s en suite.

They never acknowledged these changes aloud. It was as if they were both afraid if they spoke those words, whatever spell this was would be broken. So they continued on, never discussing how some of Terry’s clothes had materialized in Dick’s closet, or how Terry now slept in Dick’s bed every night.

But they also had not discussed fucking again. Dick suspected that was more a matter of happenstance than anything else. Terry was always exhausted, ran ragged from the two incompatible lives he tried to lead. All he had the energy for was to curl himself up on Dick’s shoulder as he drifted off to sleep before rolling away (with the blankets). And that was fine, truly it was. Dick wouldn’t have cared if they never fucked again if it meant Terry would keep smiling at him like he was doing now.

Although. _Although._

Although that didn’t mean Dick wouldn’t have dreams about having sex with Terry. And it certainly didn’t mean he’d turn down an unexpected offer like this.

Terry was wearing one of Dick’s old shirts. Even though he’d moved in what seemed like half of his own wardrobe into Dick’s closets, what he had brought was mostly outfits for campus. For sleeping, Terry’d taken the liberty of requisitioning Dick’s clothes. The shirt he had on now was just a half-size too big, falling _just_ past where it should on his waist. This morning, the bottom hem of that shirt tented along with Terry’s boxers at the half-erection he was sporting.

Dick exhaled through his nose and saw Terry smirk in his peripheral vision.

Terry whistled, quiet but sharp. “Hey, I’m up _here_,” he said, his smile as smug as his tone. Dick’s eyes snapped up to Terry’s face. When their eyes met, Terry’s smirk only grew.

Dick ignored it. He’d learned it usually made things worse if he acknowledged Terry when he was taunting him like this. Instead, he pulled the wrist he was still holding and brought it to his mouth, sort of kissing it, sort of just breathing in the scent of Terry’s bare skin.

Terry’s breath hitched. “Mm. Well, good morning to you too.”

Dick closed his eyes to enjoy the moment. He began kissing his way up Terry’s arm, from wrist to elbow crease to bicep. Dick heard Terry’s breathing speed up, but his attention was still focused on all the work to be done; the trail he was following had so far yet to go. He dragged his lips across Terry’s shoulder, sometimes kissing, sometimes nibbling at the soft skin of Terry’s collarbone, his neck.

Terry let out a quiet sound, not quite a moan yet. “God,” he whined, relaxing back down into the pillows below him.

Dick hummed a response into the side of Terry’s neck.

When he reached that soft, tender spot where Terry’s neck reached his ear, right behind the hard line of his jaw, Dick lazily opened his eyes. The alarm clock on the bedside table forced its way into his focus. With Terry’s warm skin against his, it had felt like time had stopped, but the clock was smugly reminding him that was pure folly. Time only ever ticked ever forward.

Dick sighed. There was no arguing with time. Reluctantly, he pulled away, just far enough to plant one last loud kiss against Terry’s ear.

Terry laughed and shoved him, rubbing at his ear. “Asshole,” he grinned as he kicked lightly at Dick’s side.

“You’re gonna be late for class,” Dick replied, catching Terry’s leg and pinning it against his own side. Some part of Dick’s brain noted it fit perfectly around his waist. “Didn’t you say you had an exam today?”

For a moment, Terry looked generally surprised. He looked over his shoulder at the alarm clock Dick was so clearly fixated on. When he turned back to Dick, that surprise slowly melted into a frown. “Econ exam was yesterday,” he answered, each word slow and deliberate, a voice Dick immediately could tell Terry used on Bruce any time Bruce’s aging memory was brought into question. Dick was sure Bruce hated it, because Dick wasn’t nearly half as old as Bruce, and god, he _despised_ it.

_It’s not an age thing_, Dick wanted to protest. His sense of time had just been seriously on the fritz for the last month (_slag it,_ this was getting irritating now,_ had it been a month or more than?_). “Ah.” Dick squeezed the calf in his hand. “Sorry. How’d it go?”

“Spectacular,” Terry answered with a smirk.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Spectacularly terrible,” Terry finished, the sarcasm dripping slowly off each syllable. “I barely had time to study for it last week, with T’s training and all.”

Dick frowned. He had some opinions on how much time Terry had been spending in the other timeline, and not all of them were positive. He was sure Terry could sense it, because Terry’s frequent trips to the other side rarely came up as a topic of conversation between them.

As if he was hearing Dick’s thoughts loud and clear and he didn’t want to hear a single word more, Terry scoffed. “It’s just a unit test. I’ve still got the final next month. It’s fine. I’ll pass the course.”

Dick kept his gaze fixed impassively on Terry’s face. Since whatever _This_ was started, Dick had also learned that if you waited long enough, you could generally wait out Terry’s arrogance.

Fixed beneath Dick’s stolid gaze, Terry’s smile turned sheepish as if on cue. “…Well, probably,” he added, almost timidly.

But those moments of vulnerability never lasted long. Blink and they’d be over. This one was done now, and Terry’s usual, cocky, cavalier self was back and rolling his eyes as he pulled his leg out of Dick’s reach.

“It’s _fine_. You don’t have to worry. In another three years, I’m sure I’ll be able to add ‘B.A. in BusAd’ to my resume. You know, right under my very long and _very relevant_ work history of being Batman.”

“Terry,” Dick sighed.

Terry physically shrugged his comments away, one shoulder rising and falling in defiance. “C’mon. My first class isn’t for another hour,” the younger man purred, sinking down into the bed like he was resolved to never leave it. “I’ve got time for _Dick_.”

Dick’s mouth opened and closed while his cock twitched in his boxers. Terry threw his head back and laughed, obviously pleased he’d gotten the reaction he wanted.

_Goddamnit._

“Terry,” Dick’s voice strained.

Terry stopped chuckling let his amusement melt into something darker, something needier, something voracious.

Dick knew that look. Nothing good came of that look.

Through half-closed eyes, Terry made sure he had Dick’s attention. _Look away_, Dick’s mind warned, but the thought almost made him scoff. _As if I could._

Terry let his jaw fall open, just a bit, just a suggestion of all the things he could do with that open mouth. Then, deliberately slow, Terry swept a hand down, across the length of his body, to grab the tent of his cock in his fist. “Are you going to help me with this,” Terry wondered, his voice low and slow and heavy, “or do I have to do it myself?”

Dick’s eye fluttered shut for a second while he considered. The more responsible half of him wanted to protest Terry being late to class (_again_), but the other, more insistent half of him just _wanted_. When he opened his eye again, he was met with that same too-pleased smirk that told him Terry had known the outcome of Dick’s decision before he’d even had a chance to make it.

Dick lunged forward and caught the same spot of Terry’s neck he’d been working on earlier between his teeth. As an answer to Terry’s question, he wrapped his own larger hand around Terry’s fistful of cock and squeezed.

“Fuck _yesss_,” Terry hissed in Dick’s ear.

Dick swatted Terry’s hand away to replace it with his own. Terry’s cock was all the way hard now, and Dick thumbed the silhouette of it through the fabric of his boxers. He rubbed small circles against Terry’s erection, working his way up from the base of the head to the tip. There a small, wet spot of precum waited for him, and Dick gently pressed this thumbnail into it, just barely fitting it into the slit of Terry’s cockhead.

“Yesss,” Terry’s voice keened again.

Dick used his free hand to begin tear the side of Terry’s boxers off. He had just dragged them down to mid-thigh when another alarm started wailing from the bedside table on Terry’s side.

Terry _tt-_ed out of the corner of his mouth.

“Thought I turned that off,” Dick chuckled gently, letting his grip on Terry’s boxers – and his cock – go.

“S’fine,” Terry grunted in a voice that made it clear it was very much _not_ fine.

Dick waited patiently, amusedly, as Terry wriggled beneath him to stretch an arm out for the offending phone where Dick had left it on the nightstand.

Dick took the opportunity to admire the view. Pale skin that scarred even paler stretched over Terry’s ribs, his abs, his chest. Terry was slightly smaller than Dick had been in his prime, but he packed a stronger hit, Dick was sure. Even without the suit’s servos motors enhancing him, Terry threw a punch like he didn’t care if it broke a finger or two.

Strong, but all too breakable.

Would that he could keep Terry McGinnis safe all day.

_No good can come from that train of thought,_ he warned himself dully.

Terry, unaware of the twisted way place Dick’s lust was going, brought his phone to his chest to swipe the new alarm away. But the glare he directed at the screen changed the instant his eyes read whatever alert was loaded there. Terry’s expression muddied from irritated to… something else. A look that Dick couldn’t read. There weren’t many looks of Terry’s left that Dick couldn’t read.

An all too familiar wave of unease washed over Dick’s chest, cold and sobering. 

Trying to keep too much concern from seeping into his voice, Dick cleared his throat and asked, “That wasn’t an alarm? Everything okay?” He hefted himself off Terry’s waist to retreat to his original spot on his side of the bed. Where there had been just a few inches between them before now felt like miles.

Terry was so engrossed with reading his screen, he jumped at the sound of Dick’s voice, as if he’d forgotten Dick was there. The younger man quickly replaced that cloudy expression with one of nonchalance. Maybe if this had been when they’d first started working together, Dick would have been fooled by Terry’s acting. But now? Now, no.

Terry was hiding something.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Terry replied at length, his voice held so perfectly even there was no mistaking that the calmness in it was feigned. “Something just came up on the other side, with – with T.” Terry was picking his words slowly, carefully, discreetly – just like the little movement he made to lock the screen before he set the phone back down, removing any chance Dick might see what was on Terry’s phone. It was, all things considered, a decent effort. Surely enough to fool a layman. But to Dick, it was if neon arrows were flashing over Terry’s head, pointing out the deceit. Whatever had been sent to Terry’s phone, Terry was resolved to keep it to himself.

Dick nodded, his expression far calmer than he felt. It felt suspiciously akin to the way adrenaline could slow you down and keep you cool and clear, even as danger was hurtling fullspeed towards you. “Anything we should be worried about?” Dick heard his voice ask. _Don’t scare him away. Don’t validate his belief that he has to hide whatever it is. Let him know it’s okay._

Terry smiled weakly at him. “No. No, it’s – it’s fine. But…” He hesitated, breaking eye contact with Dick to look down at his hand, which had swapped a fistful of sheets for the fistful of cock he’d just been holding. “I’m sorry,” he said, so quietly Dick could have coughed and missed it. Terry sighed and straightened up, clearly trying to return his usual confidence to his voice but not quite succeeding. “I know this is the worst possible timing, and it makes me a world-class tease, but I have to go.” Terry fixed what he probably hoped was his trademark smirk on his face. “Raincheck? I promise I’ll make it up to you later.”

There were so many things Dick wanted to say – _it was fine, Terry didn’t have to apologize for wanting to stop, Dick was just worried about him, if Terry needed to talk, he was here_ – but it was an overwhelming amount of thoughts to convey and so he managed to say none of them. Still, it was clear Terry needed Dick to think everything was as alright as he was claiming it was. Dick knew he should play along. He _had_ to play along.

_Don’t lose him_, his mind pleaded.

Dick smiled, easy, relaxed. He leaned forward to plant a soft kiss against Terry’s temple. “Raincheck, then,” he agreed.

When he pulled away from the kiss, he could see the relief wash over Terry’s face. Tension left Terry’s shoulders. The hard line his mouth had set into melted into a hopeful smile, directed too adoringly at Dick. It was obvious Terry thought he’d succeeding in convincing Dick that everything was fine.

Dick swallowed._ Good._

Terry tugged his disheveled boxers back in place as he untangled his legs from the sheets. Dick watched silently as the younger man scrambled out of bed and began pulling his clothes out of Dick’s drawer. When Terry began peeling off his sleep shirt, Dick looked down at his own hands, dread creeping up in the space where arousal had been. It felt wrong now to watch Terry undress. Something in him made Dick want to give the younger man some space and privacy, so he made an obvious show of making the bed.

As Dick tugged sheets back in place, he listened to the rustling of fabric from across the room. The short trill of a zipper. A sudden thud and a soft “ow” as Terry bumped into something. Dick waited until the sounds reaching him signaled that Terry was nearly dressed before he cleared his throat and let his presence be known again. “Be careful over there,” he said at length. He waited a second before chancing a glance in Terry’s direction to see how his words had landed.

Terry was dressed now, balanced precariously on one foot as he pulled a sock onto the other. He flashed Dick a half-hearted smile but said nothing in return. Where a minute spent indulging in Terry’s arousal on the bed had felt so gloriously long, the minute it’d taken Terry to get ready to leave seemed like an instant.

After he finally wrestled his socks and shoes on, Terry began to walk away. Dick watched him go without protest, a chill tightness like a shadowy fist gripping his chest.

When Terry reached the doorway of Dick’s bedroom, he stopped. One hand was absentmindedly resting the doorframe, the other held the strap of the backpack slung over his shoulder. Terry turned in Dick’s direction slowly, his dark brows furrowed, obviously searching for something to say. Finally, Terry brought his gaze to Dick’s, just long enough to offer an apologetic smile that did nothing to abate the dread dripping down Dick’s lungs. “I really am sorry, Dick. Some other time, yeah?”

Dick nodded but Terry hadn’t waited for his answer. Dick stood there, the bed half made, and listened to the sound of Terry’s footsteps grow fainter until they disappeared completely out the front door. In the now too-quiet apartment, all that remained of Terry was the warmth of his body where he’d left it in the crumpled blankets in Dick’s hands.

* * *

If Dick had to describe Terry’s energy before whatever _This_ was, he maybe would have used a word like ‘frenetic’ or ‘reckless.’ When they first met, Dick got the impression that Terry was toeing a tightrope with a smile that said falling would be the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

Terry _now_ was calmer, more grounded. There was a softness in Terry’s eyes these days that made Dick think that the worst was over, the storm had passed. Terry laughed so much more freely these days.

Dick wasn’t so arrogant to think that this change was all because of what was happening between them. But the way he caught Terry looking at him sometimes, those blue eyes filled with an adoration that could bring Dick to his knees if he dwelled on it too long – maybe Dick would be forgiven for thinking that he had something to do with it.

Now Dick realized he’d been a fool. The storm hadn’t passed - he’d just been living in the eye of it. The last month (month and a half?) had been the temporary reprieve before the rest of the wind and rain came howling down around him.

Terry didn’t return for days.

It wasn’t as if Dick didn’t hear from him – the same day he left, Terry had returned home through Bruce’s portal that connected their timeline to the parallel reality on the other side. Terry was back on patrol in _their_ Neo-Gotham the day after. But since that morning when Terry worked so hard to hide the message on his phone from Dick, Terry’s patrols always wound up ending near the university district. “I’ll just catch crash at the dorm,” Terry said to Dick over the comms. And that had been that.

If this had been before – before _This_ – nothing about that would have been strange. Terry hadn’t spent every night at Dick’s before, and he’d never promised he’d do so after. Their sleeping arrangement had just been an unspoken - and Dick now realized - an incredibly tenuous thing.

Dick sighed in his seat in front of the monitors that usually fed him a steady stream of audio and video from Terry’s suit. The monitors were on, but the feed was dark.

This felt uncomfortably familiar, an unsettling case of déjà vu. _There’s no sense in just sitting here waiting_, Dick thought defeatedly as he pushed himself away from the desk and stretched. As always, the bullet and the other old aches from his lifetime of acrobatics and fighting raised their complaints, but that was precisely why he kept stretching, even when the pain made him grimace.

He glanced towards the living room and kitchen – earlier, he’d went through the apartment, turning on all the lights, but somehow his loft still seemed so dark. Despite how much _stuff_ Dick had managed to fill the apartment with, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was as empty as the day he’d moved in. A ghost’s home.

Dick crossed an arm over his chest and stretched his shoulder, almost grateful for the way it protested because at least that pain was a distraction from the dangerous way his thoughts were going.

He had no idea what Terry was hiding. Terry had stopped recording video on the other side, in the other timeline. He’d given some excuse about the suit and his contact lenses acting strangely in the Lords reality, but the fact that Terry and T – or whoever was on the other end of the message that’d been sent to Terry’s phone – had no trouble communicating cross-gateway made it hard to believe.

Maybe the problem was T, the other timeline’s Terry. Dick got the sense that Terry had taken it upon himself to shoulder all responsibility for training T in Lord Batman’s suit. Maybe that was what Terry was hiding? Terry may have been the latest and most unexpected addition, but he’d absolutely nailed the batfamily trait of soloing heavy burdens that should have been shared.

Dick sighed and moved on to stretching his wrist. He wasn’t sure how he felt about T working with _that_ timeline’s Dick Grayson to become the new Batman. He was fine with it, mostly. Probably. That timeline had a giant hole in the shape of Lord Batman. It was likely a good thing there was someone willing to fill it.

Maybe T wasn’t the issue. Maybe it was _that_ Dick Grayson.

_Carefu now, _his mind scoffed._ That sounds an awful lot like jealousy_.

Ugh.

Dick could always try to restore the backups of any recordings that Terry deleted – but that felt too much like a line Bruce would cross, so Dick knew that he would never. If Terry wanted to hide something, then so be it. Maybe he’d tell Dick eventually, and of his own accord.

As Dick flexed his wrist the opposite way, a soft beep sounded, and one of the feed screens flicked on. Dick snapped back to attention. He could see the Gotham skyline passing by at, he calculated, roughly 20 miles an hour. Terry was flying.

“Hey, Dick,” Terry’s voice said.

“Hey yourself,” Dick replied as he sat back down in the chair. He caught a glimpse of a familiar skyscraper. Terry was nearing his neighborhood.

“So I know we said I should stop showing up in the suit at your apartment unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Terry said, his voice light, “but I maybe am flying your way with a dislocated shoulder. Maybe.”

Dick’s frown was instant. If that were true, Terry had no right to be using the suit to fly, even if the suit’s light armor was holding Terry’s arm more-or-less in place for him. “Which one? Same one?”

“Same one,” Terry’s voice replied through the speakers. “Remember how I made it worse last time I tried to set it myself?”

Dick steepled his fingers against his temple and sighed. “I remember.”

“Right, so. Uh… You know if Nurse Grayson’s working tonight?”

Dick sighed and hit a button. Somewhere in the opposite end of his loft, he could hear the deep grinding sound of the gym’s skylight opening. “Door’s open. Come on in.”

“See you in a bit,” Terry’s voice said cheerfully.

Dick inhaled and held his breath. He was a fool. He was a fool to think Terry had somehow grown out of his habit of being needlessly reckless. The storm had been howling in the distance, and Dick had been too unwise to hear it.

Dick heard the door that connected the aerial studio to his loft creak open, heavy metal groaning. He turned in time to see a black suit sauntering towards him, sharp angles and fierce eyes. Bruce had done a good job hitting the right amount of menacing with this suit’s design, Dick noted weakly.

“Oof,” Terry said in his own voice, not the lower, gravellier voice he put on when he wore the suit. He hooked his fingers under his chin and pulled the mask over his head, turning Batman into a twenty-year old man with black hair and blue eyes who was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him. “So before you lecture me, let me explain-”

Dick held a hand up to cut him off. “Later. Suit off. Let’s get your shoulder right.”

“Okay, so, see, about that-”

“_Off_,” Dick repeated, jerking his head towards what his teeth-too-white real estate agent had claimed would make a lovely sunroom. Dick had turned into an infirmary.

Terry held both hands up in submission, then winced and dropped his left one. “Okay, okay.” He rolled his eyes as he walked past Dick’s crossed-arm, stern figure. Dick heard the suit decompressing as he went, becoming pliable for Terry to take off like a rag.

Dick shook his head and turned to follow.

He walked into his makeshift infirmary a few steps behind Terry. Every time he entered this room, the fluorescent lighting he’d installed stung his good eye and left him squinting. While Terry began peeling himself out of the suit, Dick set about grabbing supplies – probably more than he needed, but who knew what fresh injuries were hiding beneath the suit this time? He set his work down on the table and plopped down in the rolling stool. Nearby, Terry hoisted himself onto the gurney, now stripped down to just his underwear while the suit draped lifelessly over the IV pole in the corner of the room.

“So, you wanna explain,” Dick sighed, nodding at the nasty bruise blossoming over Terry’s left shoulder.

Terry grinned at him through a split lip. “So, Commander Grayson is working with T on grappling…”

“Mmm.”

“…and T is – well, he knows how to street fight, same as when I was just starting, but he’s always leaving himself open—”

“Apparently he’s not the only one.”

A look of annoyance – and mild appreciation of the rib – flicked across Terry’s face, but he went on as if Dick hadn’t said anything. “He got _lucky_. And I miscalculated for how much the strength of the Lord Batman suit would make up for T’s terrible technique.”

“So he pulled your shoulder right back out,” Dick sighed.

“The _Lord suit’s servos_ pulled my shoulder right back out,” Terry corrected with a sneer.

Dick shook his head slightly and stood up. “Ready?”

Terry’s sneer flickered uneasily into a grimace. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Shoulders back. Try to relax.”

Terry let out a long exhale. “I know the drill.”

Dick gently picked up Terry’s wrist and placed his other hand beneath the younger man’s elbow. “Yeah, you do,” he sighed. Then silently, Dick began the series of rotations that would – with any luck – ease Terry’s shoulder back into its joint.

“Ah,” Terry’s eyelids fluttered when Dick was nearing the last maneuver. “Got it.”

Dick nodded, but he still had one more rotation to go. When he was finished, he let go of Terry’s arm and sat back down in the chair. “You shouldn’t have let it go so long,” he murmured sadly. “You came all the way back through the portal and made it here? Why not have Bruce-”

Terry shot Dick a warning look.

Dick took a breath and tried again. “What about Commander Grayson? Surely he knows how to do a shoulder reduction.”

When Terry didn’t respond right away, Dick brought his gaze to Terry’s face – and was startled to see the younger man’s cheeks had flushed pink. “I don’t – I wouldn’t,” Terry stammered when he noticed Dick looking at him.

Dick was at a loss of how to react. His overwhelming instinct was to retreat, as if Terry’s sudden awkwardness was contagious.

Terry shifted his body away from Dick’s, cautiously crossing his arms across his chest, still afraid to move his sore shoulder much. “I don’t have that kind of relationship with him.” He fixed his eyes on a spot on the wall, well away from Dick’s questioning look. “I wouldn’t have Commander Grayson work on me.”

“Oh.” Dick wasn’t sure what else he should say. It never once occurred to him that it might be awkward for Terry to be in such close proximity to someone who looked and sounded so much like the person he was fucking. But now, judging from the petulant expression on the younger man’s face, it was something that _had_ crossed Terry’s mind – a lot. “Right. Sorry.”

“It’s not liked any Dick Grayson would do, you know,” Terry said bitterly.

Dick wasn’t sure if he should, but he couldn’t help the smile that affixed itself to his lips. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” He pushed himself off the stool and set to work putting away all the unused medical supplies he’d brought out. Just more busywork to give Terry a little bit of breathing room.

With his bad eye angled at Terry, Dick couldn’t actually see but he could _feel_ the waves of upset radiating off of the young man still sitting defiantly on the gurney. Bringing up Commander Grayson had clearly been a mistake.

Dick cleared his throat. “Nurse Grayson’s office hours are officially over for the day,” he called over his shoulder, careful to do so on his bad side, so Terry was still firmly out of sight. “Chef Grayson’s shift is just starting, though. You staying for dinner?”

Terry hadn’t been expecting that. A laugh barked out from him, and judging by the sound of it, all the tension escaped with it.

“Depends. What’s on the menu?”

Dick turned around and was relieved to find Terry was back to his usual, ever-cocky, ever-amused self. Dick hadn’t realized he’d been clenching his teeth until he felt his jaw relax.

And then, there it was. That soft look in Terry’s eyes, like Dick was something to be adored. It was too much. Dick looked away. “Whatever you want. You hungry for anything in particular?”

When Terry didn’t answer right way, Dick warily brought his gaze back. A mistake. That had been what Terry was waiting for, because now Terry’s smirk was that same wicked expression of a starving predator looking at the prey in its claws.

“I think you know what I’m hungry for,” Terry drew out each word slowly, each syllable both a threat and a promise. He pushed himself off the gurney and when he closed the space between their bodies, Dick was suddenly very aware how little clothing Terry had on.

Dick swallowed as he felt a hand land on his waist, another on the small of his back. Terry leaned up to bring his mouth to Dick’s ear, purposefully going for Dick’s blind side. Dick lost his breath as Terry’s warmed goosebumps on his neck.

“Tandoori,” Terry exhaled into Dick’s ear.

Dick turned his head towards the voice. “I – what?”

Terry laughed and slid his hands off Dick’s waist. “I want Indian food,” he said, casually waving Dick’s look of confusion away. “You can order. I’m gonna take a shower. I trust your taste in Tandoori cuisine.”

Dick’s heartbeat thudded in his ear, his world off-kilter. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hit or kiss him. He _refused_ to give Terry the satisfaction of seeing Dick had been played. “Fine, but you’re paying.”

Terry laughed delightedly as he sidled past Dick and out the doorway. Apparently, that had been exactly the reaction Terry was expecting.

_Slag this kid._

“Deal, but it’s not really me paying,” Terry chirped as he walked the distance from the infirmary to the living room. “I’ve still been getting direct deposit creds from Wayne Enterprises every two weeks.”

“I guess it does pay to be Batman,” Dick deadpanned to Terry’s retreating back.

“Sure does,” Terry sing-songed from across the living room. “It pays three whole dollars above federal minimum wage.”

Dick rolled his tongue against one cheek, chuckling despite himself. _Slag this kid_, he thought again, but this time the words felt like wonder. Dick heard the shower turn on, and Terry’s voice began to sing something unrecognizable for how off-pitch it was.

Dick paused to spare the makeshift infirmary one last glance before he killed the lights. He’d dealt with hearing loss, dislocations, sprains, and far too many stitches in here. As he flicked off the light switch, the thought crossed his mind: whatever Terry was hiding, it didn’t matter. Hands down, he’d take an aggravating, annoying, full-of-himself Terry McGinnis laughing and singing over no Terry McGinnis at all.

* * *

The loft still smelled like spices when Dick went to bed that night. Dinner arrived with a driver who never once smiled, even after Terry gave Dick the thumbs up to tip far more than Dick ever would have. Eating itself went uneventfully. Terry conspicuously didn’t bring up the other timeline again for the rest of their meal. When Dick was cleaning up the take-out boxes, Terry pulled out his college laptop and set up on the couch, his feet kicked up on the coffee table, signaling loudly and clearly that there’d be no chance of them discussing it after dinner, either.

“Need help studying?” Dick had asked after dinner was cleaned up, the trash taken out, and the loft locked down for the night.

“Nope,” Terry replied, dismissing him with a wave. “I just have a couple hundred words left on this history paper.” He grabbed the top of the monitor and pulled it down, the better to look at Dick with raised eyebrows. “Unless you want to write these last few paragraphs on the Greco-Persian wars? Mm. Didn’t think so. Go on without me.”

“Try not to stay up too late,” Dick replied, doing his best to keep his tone from sounding paternal.

“Har har,” Terry muttered. With his eyes fixated back on his screen, he didn’t so much as spare a glance in Dick’s direction. “G’night, Dick.”

What else could Dick do but drop it? He left the bedroom door open so when he climbed under the sheets that night, the distant glow of Terry in the living room dimly illuminated the doorway. Dick closed his eyes. That night, he fell asleep to the faint sound of typing.

Dick’s eyes opened again to darkness. It wasn’t morning yet. Why was he awake? Groggily, he reached a hand over to the side of the bed where Terry slept, searching for the warm mountain of blankets that took up more than half the bed. His hand landed on nothing but air. He patted the sheets until he was convinced that they were empty. When he was completely sure there was no one in the bed next to him, Dick sat up, suddenly very, very awake. The room was dark, but there was still a faint light from elsewhere in the loft casting a soft glow through the open bedroom doorway.

“Terry?” he mumbled to that blue glow.

Terry’s voice, quiet and tinny, like it was reaching him through speakers, answered. Dick couldn’t make out the words, but he swung his legs around, his back muscles stiff around the bullet resting there. Ignoring its complaints, he got out of bed and followed the glow.

It wasn’t coming from the living room where he’d last left Terry. He blinked blearily, taking in the sight of the empty couch before moving on to follow the light. It was coming from the monitor area just past the kitchen. As he got nearer, Dick could hear Terry’s voice more clearly now, although it wasn’t saying anything, just laughing. Then an unfamiliar voice joined in. Older. Male. Not a voice he recognized.

“Do you remember the time when I got sick with pneumonia on our vacation…” Terry’s voice said.

“Terry?” Dick called out.

The monitor chair jolted and swung around, revealing a very startled and very awake Terry sitting there. “Dick,” he stammered, fingers fumbling blindly behind him until he found the key to stop the playback. The single screen that’d been casting the glow Dick had followed from the bedroom fell black. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was,” Dick agreed. He put one hand on the back of the chair and nodded towards the now-dark screens. “Finished with your paper, then? Watching the vid from the other side?”

Terry hesitated for a second, eyebrows furrowed. Dick, now wide awake himself, saw a range of emotions flash across Terry’s face. Fear, anger, worry, fear again, and then, finally, resignation. Terry sighed, his eyes downcast, carefully avoiding looking at Dick. “It’s… my dad. Well. It’s not _my_ dad, technically it’s _T’s_ dad, but. He’s alive. Warren McGinnis never died there.”

Terry turned slightly in the chair and called the recordings back up.

Dick squinted at the monitor until his good eye adjusted to the brightness. Sure enough, it was a recording from Terry’s contact lenses of the Lords timeline. Something Dick had never seen before. The deleted recordings.

Terry shifted in the chair beneath him uncomfortably. Dick had never seen Terry look so ashamed before. “Look, I’m sorry. I know he’s not really my father, and using the portal just to see him is wrong, but-”

Dick looked back up at the face of Warren McGinnis, smiling so warmly through the screen. Then Dick held up a hand to stop him. “Terry, you really don’t have to apologize.”

Terry’s frown deepened, and he slunk further down the chair. “Yeah, but I was – there’s some stuff I haven’t told you.”

Dick peeled his gaze from the screen to Terry’s face, watched the way the light from the screen flickered across his perfect features. Dick’s heart was close to either welling over or breaking, he couldn’t tell. Dick knew a little something about the hurt that never healed of losing a father. “I don’t expect you to tell me everything.”

Terry somehow managed to slink further down into the chair, shoulders nearly pushed up against his ears. “But what if it’s… what if it’s a something you have a right to know?”

Dick frowned. So the thing Terry had been hiding was more than the news about Warren McGinnis? He suddenly recalled Terry’s odd behavior when Dick had brought up Commander Grayson. Had that been a warning? Should Dick have been concerned? _Should_ he have been jealous?

“I…” Dick started, unsure, suddenly afraid of just how treacherous words could be. Choose the wrong ones, and you could lose everything. He swallowed and tried again. “I hope that you’d feel comfortable sharing something that’s bothering you, even if you think it’ll upset me,” he said slowly, “but if there’s something you don’t want to tell me, you really don’t. You don’t have to.” _We haven’t ever discussed what This is_, he thought. _We never laid any rules out. You can’t break any rules if there weren’t any set._

Terry mulled over his words, the same dark expression still muddying his face. That didn’t do much to ease Dick’s concern, but Dick was determined to not be upset at Terry for… for whatever it was he’d been keeping to himself. When he first began working with the new Batman of Neo-Gothan, Dick had vowed to be as different as he could be from Bruce in their support for Terry. Where Bruce might be judgmental and disappointed, Dick would be empathetic and supportive. He had to be.

Finally, seemingly having come to a decision, Terry turned back to the monitors. Still without saying a word, Terry keyed in a few commands and the footage changed. Warren McGinnis’s smiling face was replaced with the more stoic face of Commander Grayson.

Despite his conviction to not be upset, it still felt like a heavy stone dropped in Dick’s stomach. _So it was him._ Dick took a quiet breath in and steeled himself against whatever was coming next.

It was unsettling to see what looked like his own face where the details were all wrong. Commander Grayson was the same age as him, but Dick would have bet money that one of them was older – he just wouldn’t have been able to tell you which one. They’d aged similarly, weary in different ways that somehow made them look even more alike. Where lines had set around Dick’s mouth, lines had creased in Commander Grayson’s brow. He had two working eyes, and Dick just had the one. They’d both gone grey, but Dick’s had started near his ears, and Commander Grayson’s had started at his temple.

But now Dick was looking at the man in the monitor in a new light. _You can’t break any rules if there were never any set in the first place_, Dick reminded himself. Terry owed him no fidelity. Terry owed him nothing. Dick would forgive – no, there was nothing to forgive. It would be fine. It had to be fine.

Terry hit play.

Commander Grayson was looking at Terry, not unfondly, but not how Dick would have looked at him. _ You don’t know what treasure is standing in front of you_, Dick’s mind said bitterly.

Terry was saying something about T when a door behind Grayson opened. A form appeared in the light, a form that materialized into the graceful visage of Barbara Gordon when the camera in Terry’s contact lenses adjusted to the new lighting.

Both Terry’s screen and Commander Grayson turned to focus on her. She said something, smiling at them, but the audio cut out just then. A side effect of timeline travel, Terry and Dick had agreed when they’d first discovered the audio errors in the recordings from the other side. It was a miracle as much tech worked as it did cross-gateway.

There. That look. That look that Commander Grayson was giving that timeline’s Barbara.

_You’re a fool_, _Dick,_ Dick’s mind sighed at himself.

Dick could understand that look. With her hair gone snow white and her eyes still as crystal blue as when she’d worn the mantle, Babs was as beautiful then as the day Dick met her. The way Commander Grayson was looking at her now was the way Dick had looked at her that way for years. It was how Dick looked at Terry now.

_You insecure, jealous fool._

Terry sniffed and looked away from the screens. Whatever was about to happen in the recording, Terry didn’t want to see it.

Dick prepared himself – a kiss, maybe, a hug – but just then a young boy appeared in the doorway in a blur. He slammed into Barbara’s waist, wrapping his scrawny arms around her. “Mom,” his voice said before the audio fizzled and popped to nothingness. Whatever the boy said next, he said it eagerly, excitedly, tugging at Bab’s blouse in an effort to get her to follow him. Both Babs and Commander Grayson were smiling at him.

Dick felt like someone just punched him in the gut, because now he was beginning to understand what had Terry so upset.

Babs was waving with one hand now, the boy’s hand in her other. The boy waved, too, a frantic back and forth blur of six, maybe seven-year old excitement. Commander Grayson turned around to say something else to Terry, then he too, was leaving to join his family.

Terry stopped the playback.

Dick looked down to see him.

“John,” Terry said quietly, his lashes curling down over his eyes. “His name is John. He’s your – their son.”

“Terry…” Dick said, but the name choked in his throat.

Anger flashed across Terry’s face. “This is why I didn’t – this is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

Now Dick was confused. “What?”

“This, right here!” Terry shouted, motioning at Dick frustratedly. “What does it help you to know that – that if things had gone differently, you could have had the life you’d always wanted? You told me, remember? You were going to propose to Commissioner Gordon.”

Dick opened his mouth, but he wouldn’t have been able to get a word in, even if he’d wanted to.

Whenever Terry was genuinely upset, that slight northeast affection to his words came out. Neither Dick nor Bruce had ever picked up the Gotham accent, but Terry’d grown up lower-middle-class, and he had. “Now you know, there’s a life out there where you didn’t get shot, you didn’t have to retire early. You could have had a family with the woman you loved,” Terry spat. “Now you know, and what good’s that gonna do? Isn’t it just gonna bring you the pain of knowing how good you could have had it?” Terry’s mouth was a snarl now, his hands trembling with rage and resentment. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

Terry was flexing the fingers of his right hand erratically, like if he didn’t keep them moving, they’d form a fist. He hadn’t looked at Dick’s face the entire time he’d ranted, and he still refused to do so now.

“Terry…” Dick sighed.

“So _my bad_, okay?” Terry snapped. “I’m _sorry_. I’m sorry your life isn’t as good as his. I’m sorry your life will _never_ be as good as his. You’re stuck with this, and you’re stuck with me.”

Dick shut his eyes and took a deep breath.

He’d only known Terry McGinnis somewhere around a year.

But in that year, he’d went from feeling angry that Terry was the latest casualty in Bruce’s war – an anger that had, at first, been directed _at_ Terry – to wanting to protect Terry from the outcome that had cursed the rest of the family. And then, that desire to protect, to keep Terry safe, to keep Terry close, that had turned into whatever _This_ was, and _fuck_, alright, Dick would admit it. This was love.

In that year, he’d learned Terry’s favorite food was pizza, the meatier and the cheesier the better. He learned Terry laughed when he was pleased with himself – which was often – and that his left jab was almost stronger than his right hook. Terry was a fast learner, especially with anything physical. He’d mastered backs handsprings quicker than Dick had.

And Dick also learned that Terry’s first defense was always anger.

Terry McGinnis would rather feel anger than guilt or shame or grief. Anger, to him, was useful. He could use anger like a weapon. It didn’t matter that that weapon hurt its bearer as much as its victims. Terry was comfortable with anger. He always had been. His anger landed him briefly in juvenile detention. His anger landed him in the suit.

And now his anger was lashing out at Dick, doing an admirable job of masking the fear that was lying beneath.

Dick could see it in Terry’s glare. The snarl he was giving Dick was vicious, yes, but it was the same snarl of a growling dog tied to a stake. The growling and snarling and snapping teeth were all a warning that he was terrified of you getting close.

Dick placed a hand on Terry’s knee and dropped to squatting. Terry made an aggravated noise, but Dick ignored it. Dick’s head felt heavy. His heart felt heavy. All of him felt impossibly heavy with how much it hurt to see Terry suffer. He let his forehead drop down against his knuckles on Terry’s knee. “Oh, Terry.”

“’Oh, Terry’ _what?_,” Terry snarled.

Dick exhaled and looked up. Terry’s face was glaring down at him, harsh shadows crossing jaggedly across his face.

“There’s no comparison,” Dick said gently.

Terry tensed in response, the vicious anger twitching the corner of his lips, fight-or-flight mode ready to defend himself.

“However good he has it over there,” Dick went on, placing his other hand on Terry’s knee, “I have it just as good here.”

The anger clouding Terry’s face flickered, just for a second. “What?”

“Honestly, I think I have it better,” Dick said as he offered Terry a small smile. Not too wide to scare Terry away. Just something to show that he meant it. “I try not to make comparisons, but, yeah. I’m pretty sure I have it better.”

Terry’s brow furrowed, less in anger and more in confusion. “What?” he repeated, his tone softer this time, so full of caution.

“I’m not stuck with you,” Dick said slowly, giving Terry’s knee a squeeze. “I’m blessed with you.”

“What?” Terry said for a third time, all the bite drained out of his voice.

“All those things you seem to think were the tragedies of my life,” Dick said slowly, thoughtfully. “Those things I lost. The bullet. Babs. I don’t feel that way you think I do about them. Things happen. That’s just life.” Dick brought his gaze back up to Terry’s face. “And for everything I lost, there’s so much more I gained.”

Terry looked scared. He had no anger left to hide behind.

Dick’s instinct then was to look away, to hide them both from facing the fear. But he forced himself to look at Terry, forced himself to hold Terry’s gaze in his own. He wouldn’t let either of them escape. “I love you, Terry.”

Terry swallowed. “…What?”

“I love you,” Dick said again, more firmly. He would leave no room for doubt.

“Oh,” Terry answered in a small, terrified voice.

Dick smiled. “So. You know. Thank you for sharing that with me,” he nodded towards the monitor, “I know it wasn’t easy. But Commander Grayson has his life, and I have mine. And I promise you I’m okay with that. Try not to let it bother you anymore?”

Terry swallowed and gave a tiny, tiny nod.

“Great,” Dick said, lifting his hands off Terry’s knees to thump them back down on his own. With that, he pushed himself back up to standing. There was more he could say – more about Terry, more about T, more about Warren McGinnis – but something told him now wasn’t the time. “Come to bed soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Terry echoed, his voice shocked and hollow.

* * *

Terry was gone by the time Dick woke up the next morning, but Dick noted the still-made half of the bed next to his.

His college work, his bag, the suit. It was all gone.

Dick padded through the loft. His footsteps were swallowed by the empty apartment. The light was tinged near purple from the shade cast by the surrounding buildings.

He didn’t feel sad yet. Instead he felt blank. Empty. His thoughts were blissfully silent as he went through the motions of his morning routine. He made the bed – well, he made half the bed. He brushed his teeth. He got dressed. He didn’t think of anything at all until he made his first kitchen stop at the coffee maker, because that’s when he saw the post-it note stuck to the coffee pot.

“Didn’t finish paper. Have to turn it in by 8am. Will finish it on campus. Be home tonight. – T”

Dick stared at Terry’s handwriting, and suddenly he was numb no longer.

Be home tonight, it said.

Be _home_ tonight.

All the emotions he’d bottled up since waking up that morning came flooding over him. Happiness, relief, anxiety, everything mixed so strongly that his fingers trembled as he moved the post-it from the coffee pot to the fridge door. _Home._

There were approximately thirteen hours between the time Dick found Terry’s note and the time he figured Terry would return. But those thirteen hours could have been thirteen years for how they passed so slowly.

Dick tried to keep himself busy. He cleaned and swept and mopped everything from the bathroom to the infirmary, but it wasn’t even noon when he was done. He groaned. He left to buy groceries. He stopped to get lunch at the diner down the street. He came back and it was still early afternoon.

These were going to be a long few hours.

He repeatedly checked the comms and his phone, but there was no word from Terry. He thought about pinging the suit’s GPS location, but no, that was too much, so instead he set to cleaning the gym. It’d been a few months since he _really_ cleaned it, and much to his pleasure, cleaning crash mats, wiping down equipment, and reorganizing the various practice weapons Terry managed to leave in every corner of the gym was a good way to eat up a few hours. He became so absorbed in the task, he forgot he was doing it to kill time. By the time he remembered, the light filtering down from the skylight was turning a pleasant lavender. Sundown.

The neighboring buildings may have blocked the sunlight from Dick’s bedroom, but here in the gym, Dick had an unobstructed patch of sky all to himself. He paused his busywork of re-rigging trapeze ropes to admire it. Judging by the darkening shade of purple his bit of sky was turning, he guessed it was probably almost eight. He was just about to return to redo the last knot when a faint glimmer in that violet square of sky caught his eye. He watched it grow brighter as it came closer. His breath caught in his throat. He knew what that was.

A shadow landed on the skylight glass. It started a little when it saw Dick looking up at it. Dick waved weakly, and it waved back.

“Knock knock,” the shadow called down.

“One second,” Dick called back. He dropped the trapeze ropes in favor of heading for the panel that controlled all the entrances to the gym. He’d given in to Terry’s berating and had some Wayne Enterprises technicians over to upgrade his security. He figured it was probably for the best with how much Batman seemed to make an appearance in his neighborhood.

He unlocked and opened the skylight. It’s mechanized whirring echoed almost painfully loud throughout the triple-height ceilings of the gym. When the skylight pulled back a space large enough for him, Batman hopped through, the suit jets slowing his descent until he touched down with a soft thump on the gym floor.

“I thought we agreed you’d ditch the suit before coming here,” Dick chuckled as he closed the skylight back up. “Weren’t you the one who said it’d be trouble if anyone noticed how often Batman lands on this particular roof?”

“I did,” the mask agreed. “But I needed the suit tonight.”

“Oh? For what?” Dick finished resetting the security system and began walking towards Terry’s dark figure.

“Raincheck,” the bat replied, its white eyes narrowing slightly.

“Raincheck?” Dick repeated slowly. His brows furrowed as he tried to discern the meaning of the word – and then he remembered. The memory stopped him in his tracks.

“I said I’d make it up to you, didn’t I?” the suit drawled, quickly closing the gap Dick had left. Dick barely had time to react before a hard, cold thigh was jutted against his groin. “I keep my promises.”

“Terry…”

The thigh between his legs ground harder, shoving Dick backwards until his lower back pressed against the wall.

“You wanted to fuck me in the suit, right?” the mask asked, the eyes now nothing but razor-thin slits. The suit took a step back and held its arms out wide, inviting Dick to look.

Dick swallowed. _Oh, goddamnit._ He _had_ said that aloud, hadn’t he? A month (month and half) ago. In a moment of passion. In a moment when he’d not been making any rational decisions. Hesitantly, he reached up to place a hand on the suit’s jaw, felt the hard shell that that cut Terry’s sharp features even sharper. “Y-yes. If you want to.”

“Oh, I _want_,” the mask answered, a wicked smile designed to strike fear in superstitious criminals, but combined with _that_ tone of voice and the nasty, hard pressure grinding against his crotch - its effect on Dick was altogether sinful.

Terry smiled like he knew it,. He pushed Dick backwards and to the side. Shoving Dick around would have been easy for him even without the suit, because that hard pressure rubbing against his crotch had critically eroded Dick’s power left to resist. So he went easily, stumbling backwards and landing on a pile of freshly cleaned crash mats.

Terry’s smile was a leer behind the mask. He followed Dick’s fall, landing with a knee between Dick’s legs and his hands on either side of Dick’s head. He held himself above Dick, looming over him, a dark black figure with piercing white eyes, his black frame blocking out the glare from the gymnasium lights above. He pitched the knee he had between Dick’s legs again, even higher, grinding his armored thigh directly against Dick’s quickly hardening cock.

_Oh, fuck._ “Terry,” he gasped, the near-painful pressure on his cock sublime.

Terry closed his eyes, the white glow pitching black. He tilted his chin up and crooked one arm behind his back. From where Dick lay, trapped beneath him, he couldn’t see what Terry was doing with that hand. But Dick heard a click followed by a hiss of air: the suit shutting off the reverse-pressure that held the armor together as a seamless whole.

“You know, every time I do this, the right hip connector gets a little weaker,” Terry drawled lazily, opening his eyes to focus them on Dick’s face. “It’s gonna split sometime. If I take a knife in the gut because my armor gave out there, I’m blaming you.”

Dick choked out something that was half-laugh, half-cry. “If that happens, I’ll blame me, too.”

Terry smirked down at him, so crooked and sassy. “Make it worth it, then.” There was another click, another hiss – more of the suit shutting power off, releasing more joints for Terry to pull apart, creating more places where Terry’s body could be revealed. Dick wasn’t sure where exactly Terry had released this time, but his best guess left his throat dry.

The mask smiled at Dick when it noticed the strangled expression on Dick’s face. Terry never missed an opportunity to put on a show. Terry brought his arm back around and, making sure Dick was watching, began trailing his fingers up the suit’s abdominal plating, his index and middle finger just fitting in the space between each pectoral guard of the red bat sigil. Slowly, still so slowly, those fingers danced upwards, across the dip in the center of his collarbone, up his throat, over his chin. With the tips of his fingers just barely gracing his lower lip, Terry tilted his head back and stuck his tongue out to greet them.

_Fuck_, slag it, _goddamn_ this kid. The sight of Terry’s wet, pink tongue, so vivid and alive against the lifeless black of the mask was just fucking _obscene_. Dick’s hips squirmed under Terry’s weight.

That made Terry smile wider as he bit his teeth down gently over his tongue. “Patience,” he hummed, releasing his tongue to drag it across the black lips of the cowl. “Isn’t that what you’re always preaching during training?”

Dick wasn’t sure what the frantic noise that escaped him was.

With that same flair for exhibitionism Dick was starting to hate as much as he loved it, Terry stuck his index and middle fingers into his mouth. He began sucking those armored digits slowly, languidly, in no rush to do anything but drive Dick wild. Terry keened his head to one side, the black neck of the suit stretching out. Even through the firm casing of the mask, Terry’s fingers bulged out his cheek where he was sucking on them.

Dick moaned. He hated – no, he _loved_ how useless Terry’s indecent displays made him feel. His erection had went so swollen so suddenly, it was demanding immediate attention and suffered because it got none. Again, he tried to wriggle an arm free.

That movement made Terry pause the show and open his eyes. He focused those white lenses on Dick’s face, expression unreadable behind the mask. Dick’s heart fluttered in his chest as that terrifying, impersonal, cybernetic suit stared straight at him. Being pinned under Terry’s weight and the strength of the suit’s servos, his cock pinned impotently under Terry’s thigh – Dick was going to lose his mind, he was sure of it.

“Patience,” Terry’s voice insisted again from behind the mask, smiling as if he clenched a knife between his teeth. Those white, white lenses fixed on Dick’s eyes, and –making sure Dick was seeing every bit of it – Terry took his spit-covered fingers and disappeared them behind his back again, this time tucked beneath his ass. Dick couldn’t see what that hand was up to, but he _could_ see how whatever Terry’s hand was doing to himself twitched one masked eye and caused Terry’s voice to hiss out between gritted teeth.

“_Ungg._ Fuck. Gloves feel a lot harder from the inside.”

Dick’s eyes widened. Inside? _Inside_. Oh, “Fuck.”

“We’re getting there,” Terry snarked but the sharp bite of his voice was softened by the things he was doing to himself with his fingers.

Hungrily, Dick turned his gaze from Terry’s mask to the arm that was snaking back and below. He watched as the muscles of Terry’s wrist flexed and relaxed beneath the suit as his fingers pushed into and out of himself. If Dick held his breath, he could _just_ hear the faintest, wet sound of Terry’s fingers fucking his own ass.

The seconds seemed to stretch on as Terry continued, the younger man’s breath becoming more labored with each pulse of his hand. Then abruptly – “Slag it,” Terry swore, pulling his hand out and slamming it down flat on Dick’s chest. “Help me,” he pleaded with just the beginnings of desperation tinging his voice.

“Give me my arm,” Dick demanded, a little gruffer than he meant to. Terry obeyed, shifting his weight to one knee so Dick could pull his right arm free. Terry started to get up all the way, maybe intending to get into a better position for Dick to work his own fingers in, but that wasn’t what Dick needed his arm for. Instead, Dick grabbed that black hand splayed out on his chest and brought it to his mouth. Dick kissed the knuckles of Terry’s gloved hand and for just a moment, he left his lips there. The armor was so cool against his lips, cooler than Terry’s bare skin would have been. Then, without a word, he opened his mouth and took Terry’s fingers – those same two fingers – onto his tongue and wrapped his lips around them.

“Ah,” Terry’s voice hitched above him.

He would’ve loved to see Terry’s face then, but Dick’s good eye was shut as he worked his tongue around those fingers. Unlike the rest of the suit, they were still warm from being inside Terry. They _tasted_ like inside Terry. Dick knew that Terry couldn’t feel the warmth, the wetness of the inside of his mouth, but that didn’t stop the other man from moaning as if it were his cock and not his suited fingers in Dick’s mouth.

“Dick,” Terry pleaded again, so Dick relented. He opened his mouth and let Terry take his hand back, the sound smacking wetly as he did.

The moment his hand was his own again, Terry disappeared it behind his back. Instead of thrusting his fingers into his ass, this time Terry held his arm rigid and pulsed just his hips, fucking himself down onto his fingers, more eagerly now that they were slick with Dick’s spit.

Dick’s erection twitched against his thigh. This waiting, this teasing, he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced a sweeter agony.

Terry was beginning to lose his composure, and god, what a beautiful sight that was.

“Okay,” Terry gasped, haphazardly driving his hips down onto his fingers one last time. “Okay.”

Dick pushed his hips up into Terry’s thighs in answer.

Terry managed a smirk at that, those white lenses narrowing into slits. “Sorry. Right.”

When Terry pushed himself up onto his knees, Dick seized the opportunity to wrestle his other arm free. Immediately, Dick yanked his pants down around his knees, freeing his cock to bathe in the chill air of the gym. Both men paused to look at it for a moment, to take in how heavy it was, how dark, angry veins coiling around.

Like Dick’s cock was a magnet pulling his hand towards it, Terry’s wrapped his fingers around it slowly, like Terry had no say in what his hand was doing. It sent a shiver throughout Dick’s body. Dick’s cock was feverish with want, but the hand of Terry’s suit was so _cold_ compared to body temperature. Terry slowly dragged his fingers down the hard, veiny length. Terry’s grip in the suit was a vice, hard and unyielding and far more powerful a hold that any sane person should want on their rock-hard erection. That sharp tinge of fear lurking just beneath the pleasure brought Dick dangerously close to a precipice he knew he must not cross yet.

“Terry,” he rumbled, both a plea and a warning.

He heard Terry snicker before that strong grip released his cock. Dick began to sigh in relief, but before he could finish filling his lungs with the sweet, cool air of early evening, the breath felt like it was wrenched from him because Terry had only removed his hand so he could replace it with his mouth.

“_Fuck!_” Dick shouted.

“Mmhmm,” Terry hummed over his mouthful of cock.

Dick snapped his chin down to his chest so quickly he felt a tweak in his neck. It barely registered, though, because all his attention sharpened on the hot, wet mouth sucking loudly on his dick. “Fuck!” he swore again.

_This was too much._ Oh, god, oh fuck, this was _too much_. Dick’s mind was struggling to process the sight of the black mask of Batman swallowing his dick.. One white eye flicked open and looked up at Dick as it swallowed the entirety of his length, and the sight of it was too fucking filthy, Dick had to squeeze his good eye shut because he knew if he looked any longer, he’d be in some very real trouble.

But Terry McGinnis really, really, _really_ did not like to be ignored.

Dick felt teeth bite down on his cock. Not hard, but it was so unexpected he yelped as his eyes flew open. Terry smiled when he saw Dick was back to looking at him, but he did it while keeping his teeth ever-so-gently pressed into the hard flesh of Dick’s cock.

With Dick still caught between his incisors, Terry stuck his tongue out between the gap of his mouth and the hard, wet cock in it. He dragged his tongue slowly across the underside of Dick’s cock, then up in a semicircle to the corner of his own mouth, over the sharp point of his canine.

Dick was ruined, he knew that now. There would be no possible way for him to see Terry in the suit after this and _not_ recall the way Batman looked with Dick’s cock filling his mouth.

He reached a trembling hand down, but once it was near Terry’s head, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. There was no hair for him to grab, no soft strands to worry between his fingers. The mask’s eye watched him, silently, while his mouth continued toying with Dick’s cock between lips and tongue and teeth. Dick settled on laying that shaking hand atop Terry’s skull, tentatively, hardly putting any weight into it at all.

Still, the placement of Dick’s hand must have meant something to the younger man, because suddenly the white eyes of the mask closed and Terry was choking his way completely down the length of his dick. Dick’s breath abandoned him when the head of his cock bumped against the back of a too-greedy throat.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ Dick needed to grab something. The hand on Terry’s head scrambled wildly until it bumped into the hard ridge of the mask’s ear. His fingers wrapped around it, desperate to hold onto something solid, something to ground him before he fell off the edge. “Ah – fuck!”

That must have been the encouragement Terry’d been waiting for, because now he was bobbing his head up and down the length of Dick’s cock with abandon. All Dick could do was grip onto the ear like it was his only lifeline – and maybe it really was just then. If he let himself think about it, even for a second, if Dick let himself think for even a moment about how Neo-Gotham’s dark knight, the man who’d saved the city more times than the news could keep track, the near-mythic figure that civilians and criminals alike whispered about in hushed voices – if the city of Gotham could see that _that_ man was now gagging on his dick, so fucking eager to please him … Dick would have lost it. Completely and totally.

Terry exhaled through his nose, his breath so sweetly warm against Dick’s skin.

“Terry, slow down,” Dick gasped, but Terry very deliberately ignored him. If anything, he would have sworn that Terry sped up.

Dick had nowhere to run, nowhere to escape. He was already backed up as far as he could go against the crash mats on the floor. His legs were trapped beneath the weight of Terry in the suit. If he didn’t do something, this would all be over before it had a chance to really begin.

_So close, so fucking close. _

The wet mouth sucking on his cock had him right on the edge, and it was the most wonderful, most awful place to be.

“Terry!” Dick yelled as he yanked Terry’s head back by the ear.

The younger man let himself be pulled off Dick’s cock, his jaw still hung ajar, an obscene snapshot of what that mouth had just been doing. A trail of saliva dripped out of the corner of the mask’s lips, and Dick watched it dribble down, down the hard planes of the suit’s chin, stretched down until it almost reached the bloodred bat sigil heaving unsteadily on Terry’s chest with each ragged, uneven breath.

_Fuck._

“You coulda cum,” Terry mumbled, his head still cricked in the awkward angle Dick’s hold on the mask’s ear dictated. Slowly, almost like a yawn, Terry stretched his jaw, lurching it from side to side lazily. “I woulda swallowed.”

Dick inhaled through his nose slowly to calm himself down. “I appreciate that,” he managed haltingly, every word an effort to walk himself back from the perilous ledge that Terry’s actions were so insistent on prodding him over. “But I want – no, I _need_ to fuck you.”

The mask’s eyes blinked slowly. Then its lips curled into a wicked sneer. “Be my guest.”

The fingers he had around Terry’s ear twitched, hesitating. Dick’s fantasies of fucking the suit had never gone as far as reality was taking him now. In fact, he hadn’t really let himself fantasize about this at _all_. His thoughts of fucking Terry in the suit had been less fantasy and more like momentary lapses in the calm-cool façade he endeavored so strongly to uphold, because that façade had been the only thing keeping himself insulated from just how fucking _hungry_ he’d been for the man in the suit.

Those moments hit Dick when he’d least expected it: watching Terry turn tricks in the suit; Terry, fully masked, leaning an arm on Dick’s shoulder as they looked at the same monitor together; Terry’s black hips swaggering from side to side as he sauntered away. They’d only been short, tiny instances when Dick’s guard slipped and he finally heard his own thoughts of: _I want to fuck that_.

But now that they were here, he almost wasn’t sure what to do. He swallowed and came to a decision. Slowly, he slid his fingers down to the base of the mask’s ear (a movement so similar to sliding a hand down a cock, he noticed) and rested them there at the bottom. Once he had a secure hold on the base of the mask’s ear, Dick pulled.

“Hey-” Terry protested, but his objection was lost and muffled as the mask began lifting off his face. Dick watched the hem of the mask drag upwards, first revealing a pale neck, then a hard, set jaw, then an open, panting mouth, and finally – finally – as he pulled the mask the last of the way: blue eyes fluttering beneath dark lashes.

Terry blinked, slowly, then brought his gaze to slowly fixate on Dick’s face. For just a second, Terry’s eyes, dark and clouded, revealed just how _badly_ Terry wanted. But the next instant, that look was gone, and Terry was rolling his eyes at Dick. “Maybe warn a guy before you unmask him next time.”

“Sorry,” Dick exhaled.

The corners of Terry’s lips pitched up in a smirk. “We heroes take our secret identities very seriously, you know,” he added, catching his bottom lip between his teeth.

When he released that lip, Dick could see how it was redder than usual, slightly swollen from all its hard work earlier. If the sight of the mask sucking his dick hadn’t been hot enough… Fixated on that swollen lower lip, now Dick had a whole new catalogue of images to think about. Those lips, _those_ perfect lips had wrapped themselves around his cock.

With a renewed sense of urgency, Dick grabbed for Terry’s face. Terry may have tried to say something then, but it was swallowed away when Dick brought their lips crashing together. Terry’s breath panted into Dick’s mouth. He could _almost_ taste his own precum on Terry’s tongue, and he chased after the ghost of it, running his tongue along Terry’s like he was starving for it.

A moan escaped Terry, shaky and breathless. God, how Dick lusted for the sound of it. _More_. Dick wanted more. Instead of giving the younger man a chance to catch his breath, he did nearly the opposite: he hounded after Terry’s panting, completely covering Terry’s mouth with his own,

Terry made noises of warning until Dick finally relented and let the younger man pull away to catch his breath. “Jesus, Dick,” Terry gasped as he brought the back of one black-gloved wrist up to his mouth. The wing blades on his forearm caught the gym light and shined obsidian. Terry used the back of that gloved hand to wipe away the spit – Dick’s or his own, who could say – off his lips.

_So goddamn beautiful,_ Dick thought to himself.

The way he was looking at Terry was akin to reverence. And if there was something Terry had a knack for (other than snarky one-liners), it was being desired. Terry thrived on it. Reveled in it. He smiled now, pleased, when he noticed the way Dick was looking at him. With an approving grin, he stretched his head back, inviting Dick to admire him more. It was a game for Terry to will Dick’s attention where _he_ wanted it. He pursed his lips, drawing Dick’s gaze up to his mouth, then blinked slowly, drawing it further up to his eyes.

Dick was lost a moment there, admiring those dark lashes contrasted against flushed cheeks. That’s probably what Terry wanted, but Dick didn’t even care. He still won even if he was the loser in this challenge.

Terry’s eyes flicked up to meet Dick’s gaze. He held Dick there deliberately, locked his ice blue-turned-slate grey eyes on Dick’s. Then, in a voice so breathless and quiet, it could almost be considered coy, Terry asked, “Fuck me now?”

Dick’s pulse thumped in his cock. “Yes.”

Terry may have lost the mask, but he was still wearing the rest of the suit. Servos motors whirred faintly as he rose to his knees. Dick was helpless to do anything but watch as the younger man laid a single index finger on Dick’s chest, perfectly drilled into his sternum. Dick looked up at him questioningly.

The smile Terry returned was damn near indecent.

With just that one finger, the suit’s servos sent Dick flying backwards. If they hadn’t been on crash mats, Dick knew there’d have been bruising.

Still risen on his knees, Terry climbed over Dick, at first straddling one of Dick’s thighs, then sidling up until he straddled Dick’s waist. Terry snaked a hand behind his lower back to grip Dick’s cock in his hand and guide it into position. He paused there, one hand on Dick’s cock, the other on Dick’s stomach for balance. Before he lowered himself down, he found Dick’s eyes with his own. “Make me cum, Dick,” he whispered before he sent his hips crashing down.

It wasn’t the smoothest entry Dick’d ever experienced. Terry’s muscle had not really wanted to yield to the intrusion, but he’d bared down and forced it to. “_Ah_,” Terry whimpered, shoulders shuddering as a racked breath seized him as Dick’s cock drilled its way up into him.

Dick had to clench his jaw and squeeze his eyes shut to keep from making a similar sound, because suddenly finding himself plunged into that soft, velvet warmth at long fucking last had sent sparks off behind his eyelids.

“Fuck,” Terry hissed as he slid further down Dick’s cock, coming to rest at midshaft. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Yessss.” He tilted his head back, just a bit, his hair falling against his forehead. “Feels so good,” he moaned. The suit’s servos whirred rhythmically as he began to ride up and down Dick’s cock.

It took considerable effort, but Dick managed to pry his eyes open. As much as he would have loved to just lie back and relax as his cock was fucked into a young, tight ass, this was a sight he’d _never_ forgive himself for missing.

His thoughts short-circuited when he finally looked at the sight that awaited him. Here was Terry, still in the suit, an unignorable reminder of who he was and what he did when he wasn’t riding someone’s dick. The gym light glinted off the harsh edges of the armor. The bat on his chest pitched and fell with each shaky breath he took. The look on Terry’s face made it seem like there was nothing, absolutely _nothing_ in the world that could pry him off of the dick he’d shoved into himself. His jaw was slack, his eyes just barely fluttered shut, a slight crease at his brow as he indulged in the pleasure of fucking himself down onto Dick’s cock.

Dick wanted to tell him how beautiful he looked, but the only sound his mouth was willing to make was a moan.

Abandoning all hope of words completely, Dick instead tried to use his hands to convey even a fraction of what he was feeling. He brought his hands to either side of Terry’s waist, a grip only tight enough that his hands could go along with the ride Terry’s hips were taking.

He and Terry stayed there for a moment, silent but for their labored breathing and the rhythmic sound of Terry’s ass slapping against Dick’s waist. That sharp sound, so fucking obscene, echoed shamefully loud in the huge, high-vaulted gym.

_Fuck._ Dick glanced down to see where his cock was being repeatedly swallowed into that armor. A rasping breath shuddered through him then, because that, _that_ was the lewdest thing of all. The glimpses he caught of his own dark, veiny dick, so impossibly hard, disappearing again and again into a part of the suit it never should have been able to penetrate.

“Fuck _yes_.” Terry’s moan snapped Dick back into the moment. Terry had tossed his head all the way back at some point during Dick’s rapture, so now all Dick could see was the bottom of his chin and his pale throat, tensing with the effort it took to fuck himself onto Dick’s erection.

Dick reached a hand for that throat. He brushed his knuckles against Terry’s Adam’s apple, felt it twitch against his hand. Then Dick then dragged his fingers down, pausing to play at the seam of the suit that wrapped around Terry’s neck. Terry let out a moan of encouragement, so Dick’s hand continued its worship down Terry’s body, across the hard ridges of the suit’s collarbones, across Terry’s chest, down the armored abs, and then – oh, fuck. His fingers came to rest just below where Terry’s belly button was, just above the suit’s crotch. Although the rigid armor hid it well, he knew that’s where Terry’s own erection must have been, abandoned, disregarded and hopelessly, hopelessly _trapped_.

Dick ghosted his fingers against the bowed armor there, guessing at where the outline of Terry’s cock might be. Terry whimpered and brought his hips crashing down on Dick’s cock in response, burying Dick to the hilt within him. Dick groaned and replaced the touch of his fingertips with the entire palm of his hand, cupping his hand there firmly. Terry rocked his hips forward to meet that pressure, dragging Dick’s cock with him.

“I want to cum,” Terry gasped.

“So cum,” Dick replied, squeezing down on the suit’s crotch. There was no give. The guard was too thick. He was sure Terry could barely feel it.

“I can’t, I need--”

“Then flip over,” Dick grunted.

Terry’s desperate want had taken him past the point of objections, and to Dick’s relief and slight surprise, he obliged. With one hand braced on Dick’s shoulder for leverage, the younger man pushed himself up, up, up until Dick’s cock slid out. That elicited a soft gasp from him as he suddenly went empty.

Dick patted Terry’s thigh, both a comfort and an encouragement.

Terry tumbled off of Dick’s waist to the side, the strength in his legs failing. Even with the suit’s help, he’d been riding Dick for long enough that Dick was _sure_ the younger man’s thighs were burning.

Terry took a moment on the floor, maybe grateful for the freprieve from a cock drilling into his ass. Then, with a resolved inhale, he shifted his weight, and slowly, shakily, he turned himself around and gave Dick his first glimpse of exactly where he’d taken the suit apart earlier.

Dick’s swallow caught like a pill in his throat. _Filthy. So fucking filthy._

The suit had disconnected and retracted in a way Bruce had surely not intended it to: a perfect black frame for taut, pale ass cheeks – and between those, between _those_, a raw and red and open hole that was just _begging_ to be filled again. Dick slammed the back of his wrist into his mouth to keep any traitorous noise from escaping. What Terry’d done was build a filthy version of erotic backless briefs into a deathsuit.

“So pretty,” Dick breathed out in awe, the words snaking off his lips and around his wrist before he could stop himself.

Terry was facing away from him, his weight now distributed on his hands and knees at Dick’s feet, but he turned to glare at Dick over his still-armored shoulder.

Dick barely registered the warning shot, because how could he think about anything other than the perfect, tight, young ass framed before him, offering itself to his will? _Fuck_. Dick pulled himself upright a bit more, just enough to get his arms free because he desperately needed to get his hands on the vulgar view taunting him. He dug his nails into Terry’s ass and marveled at how perfectly the supple muscle fit in his hands. He rolled the muscle under his palm, first aimlessly, just to admire the feel of it, then with purpose, using that movement to gently spread Terry’s ass apart and reveal the prize between. He watched the beautiful way Terry’s asshole twitched at the sensation.

“Dick,” Terry choked out between gasps.

Dick’s answer was to lean down to lick a stripe up that sweet, tender crevice. Terry there was fever-hot and slick from the fucking it received earlier.

“Shit!” Terry’s surprised voice yelled, his back arching, tucking his hips under and away from Dick’s unannounced intrusion.

“Sorry,” Dick replied guiltily. “You okay?” He rubbed at Terry’s entrance with the thumb of one hand apologetically as Terry muttered something indecipherable. Gently, he pressed his thumbnail halfway in, and Terry’s mutters melted into moans. Dick paused a moment there, pushing and stroking gently with his thumb. Patiently, he waited until the taut muscle in his hand relaxed before planting a kiss low on Terry’s back to advertise his intention to pick up where he’d left off.

Terry nodded, a movement just barely visible given how far down his neck had slunk in his shoulders.

Dick planted one more quick kiss to Terry’s lower back before he worked his tongue back down, pausing to wonder at that raw entrance. _So good_, he thought hazily. Carefully, testing, waiting to see how Terry would react, he pressed his tongue in, just the barest of suggestions.

Dick had been expecting more resistance, but he was not at all prepared for the way Terry imploded against him. A string of curses poured out of the younger man – some old fashioned ones Dick knew, and newer ones from Terry’s generation that he didn’t – but from the way Terry was backing his ass into Dick’s face, he assumed that they were all a sign of a good thing.

Dick hummed, satisfied, and worked his tongue further in, deeper, until his nose bumped against Terry’s tail bone. After having just had a cock in it, Terry’s raw and swollen hole opened to his tongue so greedily.

To his credit, Terry hung in there admirably, trembling as he held himself upright on his hands and knees. Dick knew the suit was more than strong enough to bear Terry’s weight when Terry himself couldn’t, so he knew the shaking wasn’t from the strain. That made Dick hum again, his voice vibrating against Terry’s skin.

“_Dick_.” Terry’s plea came out almost like a sob and betrayed how close he was to breaking.

That sound meant it was time to move on. Dick pulled his tongue out to kiss a parting goodbye. He was finding great delight in pushing Terry’s limits, but pushing, not breaking them, was all he wanted to do.

Wiping his mouth with the back of one hand, Dick used his other to grab his cock. It’d grown almost painfully stiff from being sucked and teased so close to the edge, then ignored, then fucked down on, only to be completely ignored _again_. He jerked it twice, trying to calm it, before he leaned forward to guide himself back into Terry’s now sloppy wet hole. This time around, there wasn’t any resistance and he slipped in languidly. Terry moaned beneath him as Dick rose up to one knee, his other foot planted firmly on the ground, bracing himself with a hand on either of Terry’s hips.

Confident that this angle was good, Dick drove his hips down into Terry’s ass with enough force that Terry yelped and nearly tumbled forward, but Dick’s hold on his hips kept him steady.

Dick pumped his hips down again, his balls slapping sharply against Terry’s ass, stinging as they hit Terry’s still armored thighs. The pain of that mixed so fucking deliciously with how _good_ it felt to thrust into Terry’s raw, aching tightness. He fucked in and out of Terry’s with a ferocity he wouldn’t have dared with anyone else. But Terry could take it. Terry was so _eager_ to take it.

“Slag it, fuck yes, _fuck me_,” Terry whined, as if he was agreeing with Dick’s thoughts.

They’d only fucked once before, but Dick had quickly learned. Gentleness, steadiness, stamina – that’s not what it took to satiate Terry McGinnis. Fast, sharp, hard – as fast and as sharp and as hard as Dick’s body could possibly manage it, slamming his cock into Terry like an unremitting piston – _that’s_ what it took to please Terry and bring him to orgasm.

And that’s exactly what Dick was doing now. He bent forward at the waist and pressed his lips against the side of Terry’s head. “Cum for me,” he breathed into Terry’s temple, sweat-slick black hair tickling his nose.

Terry’s voice came out uneven, fragile and unsteady. “I can’t, my dick is--”

“You _can_,” Dick cut him off. “You’re doing so good.” He slowed his hips to a gentle roll, dragging his cock languidly in and out as Terry clenched around him. “You can do it.” He readjusted his weight – the real reason he’d slowed down. Now repositioned and able to snap his hips down ever harder, he bit down on the top of Terry’s ear. “Focus on _my_ dick and cum for me.”

Terry tensed beneath him. Dick heard the suit servos ramp up to more power to keep Terry from being slammed forward from the sudden, relentless momentum of Dick’s hips.

“Oh god, I can’t,” Terry choked again, “I’m so close, but I can’t.”

Dick moved his hand from Terry’s hip to his chin. He pulled Terry’s head up an inch and lowered himself further down to meet it, bringing them close enough that he could press his mouth against the side of Terry’s forehead, his lower lip catching Terry’s brow. “If anyone walked in right now,” Dick said quietly, “they’d see Batman getting fucked open on his hands and knees.”

“F-fuck,” Terry sobbed.

“Surrender,” Dick commanded into Terry’s temple with a kiss.

He drilled his hips back into Terry’s ruthlessly. If the roles were reversed, Dick would never have been able to handle what he was giving Terry now, but Terry groaned in pleasure beneath him. Dick felt himself approaching that familiar edge he’d already visited too many times tonight. But he held it off; he could handle more, he wanted more, and he’d keep ramming his way in, fucking Terry open until they both got what they wanted.

“I’m gonna-” Terry started, but the words choked out to silence as his body went rigid beneath Dick.

Dick neither slowed down nor eased up at the warning, and after a few more nasty fucks, his cock pumping down into Terry what felt impossibly deep, he was finally, finally rewarded with the view of Terry’s face contorting as ecstasy overtook him. Terry’s mouth pitched at one corner, almost a snarl, his upper canine tooth catching the light as he screamed something that might have been Dick’s name. A violent shudder reverberated throughout Terry’s entire body, spasming around Dick’s cock so sweetly.

“You’re so goddamn beautiful, Terry.”

Terry let out a wrecked sob as he continued to cum, a gloriously long, almost painfully long orgasm.

Dick drank it all in. These were images he never wanted to forget: Terry’s eyes squeezed shut, Terry’s slack jaw still moaning, Terry’s throat pitching beneath the suit as he struggled for air.

One of Terry’s eyes fell open and when it tried to focus on Dick’s face, Dick could see how absolutely _destroyed_ the man was.

“Hang in there just a little more for me,” Dick whispered.

Terry’s eyelids fluttered closed, almost drunkenly, in response.

_This._ This was a moment that Dick wanted to stretch into a lifetime. Fucking the tail end of Terry’s orgasm, drilling his cock into Terry’s oversensitive, feverish hole, watching all coherence drain out of the Terry as he continued to get fucked mercilessly even though his own pleasure had already crested long ago.

Dick was faced with a choice – he could have held on tight and turned that dream into a reality, could’ve held back his own pleasure to keep fucking into Terry’s increasingly destroyed sex, or he could let go. Inhaling a shaky breath, Dick let go.

Terry’s eyes squeezed shut and he let out a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Fuck yes,” he hissed on his exhale, using the last of his strength to arch his back and push his hips up, to open himself up and to offer what more of himself he could.

And that was all it took. Dick was cumming, spilling inside the quivering body below him. Squeezed by the trembling aftershocks of Terry’s orgasm, Dick’s own pleasure finally, finally, _finally_ took him over that edge. Waves of white pleasure spread from his cock, his stomach, washing over his whole body, until every part of him felt like it was exposed wire. A white, hot flash spread from the back of his eyelids and Dick kept cumming, fucking forward slowly until that white sting threatened to ache.

_So, so fucking good._

At last, Dick slowed his hips until they came to a complete stop, his cock still held in place by the way Terry’s ass clenched around him. “Fuck,” he groaned, and Terry simpered in reply.

Dick let himself rest there for a moment. Muscles threatened a distant burn that he knew would haunt him later, but _slag it_, it’d been so worth it. He leaned down, letting Terry and the suit bear the brunt of his weight, and kissed the side of Terry’s head.

Terry grunted, the weight unwelcome.

Dick chuckled and carefully began the reluctant work of pulling out. Slowly, so slowly, he slid out, that final drag enough to squeeze one last oversensitive wave of maybe-pleasure, maybe-pain. From the way Terry gasped and trembled, he was sure it was just as, if not more so, overwhelming for him. Once Dick was out, some of his cum dribbled out after him, trailing down Terry’s skin to spill onto the suit’s edges. “Oh,” Dick breathed as he watched it.

It took Terry a long moment to gather the willpower to push himself off of his hands and knees and flip over. Once he did, he all but collapsed backwards onto the crash mats, catching himself to prop up at the elbows, his legs limp as a ragdoll. Terry tossed his head back, his chin thrust up to the ceiling. “Dregs,” he moaned. “I don’t think I’m gonna walk right for a _week_.”

Dick sat down next to him. His slowly softening cock flopped, satisfied, onto his bare thigh. “But it was okay?” he asked. _It’d been good, right? Terry had liked it?_

Terry turned to look at Dick incredulously out of the corner of his eye. “Okay? _Okay?_” he choked. “Are you fucking with me? I just came the hardest I ever have in my life – all without even _touching_ my dick – and you made me do it in the suit. I don’t think there’s a cleaning protocol for that.”

A laugh barked out of Dick, exhausted and breathless.

“I love you, Dick Grayson.”

Dick’s laughter sputtered. He looked up at Terry with wide eyes. _Did he just hear that right?_

“I’m sorry I couldn’t… I couldn’t say it last night,” Terry groaned, the servos whining one last time as he pushed himself up to sitting. He propped one arm up on a knee while the other fell lazily to his side. “I still don’t really believe… I don’t know how one guy in a suit could be better than… you know. The alternative.” He looked down as he brushed his sweat-slick hair out of his eyes. “But if you’re really okay with it, then…”

Dick leaned over and caught Terry’s chin in his hand. He locked his good eye on Terry’s. There was still some fear there, but Terry’s eyes were clear and bright and beautiful. They were full of hope.

“I love you,” Dick said firmly.

Terry’s mouth pitched up in his favorite smirk. “Glad to hear it.” He closed his eyes and tilted his chin up, an invitation, or maybe a question.

Dick leaned in and kissed him gently.

When he pulled away, Terry sighed, the sweetest sound Dick’d ever heard. “Now we’re squared up from before, right?”

Dick frowned. “Huh?”

“Raincheck was fulfilled,” Terry clarified as he began the work of peeling the suit off himself.

“Oh,” Dick smiled. “Yeah. Very much so.”

Terry nodded as he pulled one arm out of the suit. “Cool. Because – and don’t be mad – I may have missed the redo exam my econ professor offered me so I could come here and have you make a mess in my suit. So I’m thinking, now that I’m really close to failing and _and _I have to clean this-” he motioned to the suit now hanging limply around his waist, “now you owe _me_ something.”

Dick managed to sigh and laugh at the same time. “Okay. That’s fair. What do I owe you?”

Terry raised an eyebrow and grinned.

_Uh oh._

“I’m not the only one with a suit,” Terry purred.

_Fuck._ Dick shook his head, “Nope. Not happening.” Before Terry could get another word out, Dick cut him off by pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Don’t you dare call me Nightwing,” he warned.

The laugh that shook through Terry – god. Would that he could have Terry laugh like that forever.

“Okay, fine,” Terry relented, wiping either a tear from his eye or sweat from his brow away with the back of one hand. “Then let me fuck you.”

Dick blinked. “What – right now? Terry I don’t think I…”

Terry’s laughter doubled him over, his bare chest heaving as he collapsed onto his still-armored knees. “No, _god no_, not right now,” he wheezed. When his laughter finally calmed down, he looked up at Dick, fondly, adoringly, and a little bit embarrassed at what he was asking for. “Just. Sometime. When I can walk again.” He carefully watched Dick’s reaction as he asked, “So you don’t hate the idea, then? You’ll let me?”

Dick raised an eyebrow. No, he didn’t hate it. “You pass Economics, I’ll let you fuck me as much as you want,” he shrugged.

“That’s twisted,” Terry gasped in mock, maybe real horror.

“It’s _incentive_,” Dick corrected. With a groan, he pushed himself up to standing, then reached a hand down to Terry. “C’mon. Let’s get you out of that suit and into the shower.”

Terry took the hand and let himself be pulled up, but his eyes flicked back and forth as he calculated something mentally, completely oblivious to anything else.

“Slag it,” Terry swore darkly as Dick slung one of his arms over his shoulder.

“Mm?” With an arm around Terry’s waist, Dick began walking them out of the gym.

“I have to average around 75 on the next _two_ unit exams, and a get _at least_ an 80 on the final to pass.”

Dick laughed and pushed the gym door open. “You’d better start studying, then.

**Author's Note:**

> Whenever I set out to write smut, I inevitably end up deep-diving into the character’s emotive states because honestly, that’s like porn TO ME. I’M SORRY. I know you're here for the actual porn!! I hope the payoff’s worth it. (I really, really tried to make the final sex scene long enough to make how much exploratory writing you had to read to get there worth it!) I have so many residual feels for Terry and Dick’s relationship through the Justice Lords Beyond and Mark of the Phantasm arcs.
> 
> I've been working on this for over half a year, and one of the reasons this was a work in progress for so long was because I kept getting frustrated with the logistics of the batsuit, frustrated and discouraged to the point where I needed months-long breaks in between writing it. In the end, I kind of just said fuck it, if we’re all willing to employ suspension of disbelief for a guy in a robo-batsuit fighting crime in a cyberpunk future, we can suspend our disbelief about how said guy can also get some dick in it. I DUNNO. I still try not to think about the logistics too much.
> 
> The other problem was that my original approach had been too angsty. The moment I lightened up how their relationship's been going post-Things Dick Grayson Lost, everything finally fell into place. I hope you enjoyed their slowly blossoming domestic bliss as much as I did!
> 
> Also, I purposefully wrapped this story up before the final events of 2.0, because the roles reversing and having Terry experience what Dick was going through in Rewired (canon)/Things Dick Grayson Lost (my mess) sounds like Fantastic Angst Fodder, so maybe someday I’ll write a third and final part to this!!
> 
> (Final, final note: if there are any medical professionals reading this, I apologize if I’ve inaccurately described the Kochler method of shoulder reduction. My entire medical knowledge can be summarized as “maybe put Neosporin on it, call it a day” so I knew I had no right to be writing about it, so I did my research but still tried to keep my description vague less I fuck it up. I am so sorry though, I'm sure it is garbage.)


End file.
